Bacon's DictionaryAppendices

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The exhibits and miniatures of which are found in this section, are designed to assist the serious student and reader in following the path of the Authorship Controvesy that has been so laboriously persued by many authors and researchers during its commence.

These exhibits have been placed here as not to interrupt the flow of reading in the Baconian Dictionary sections, being a finding list of Bacon’s works, his history, his thoughts and his aims, which are a subject of study and discussion.

Bacon’s House in Noble Street, Aldersgate

Christopher Barker and Robert Barker were printers to Queen Elizabeth; and Mr. Ames, in his account of Christopher Barker, says that he had a printing office in Bacon-house, near Foster Lane, in which he printed Acts of Parliament. Christopher Barker died in 1509, and after 1588 the business was earned on by his deputies. Robert Barker, his son, who was a prisoner in the King’s Bench from 1635, died there in 1645. Probably, Nicholas Goff [Gough?] the elder, and Nicholas Goff the younger, although neither of them are mentioned by Mr. Ames, were deputies or assigns of Christopher or of Robert Barker. Among the books printed by Christopher Barker, in the list given by Mr. Ames, is the following printed at Bacon-house:

• Acts of Parliament, in 23rd Elizabeth, 1581
• Christian Meditations by Theodore Beza, imprinted in Bacon-house, 1582
• Acts of Parliament, 27th Elizabeth, 1585, imprinted in Bacon-house, near Foster Lane.

The Recorder, Fleetwood, is not mentioned in the conveyance of Bacon-house to Charles Restock and although his letters are dated from Bacon-house, Stow mentions the house of the Recorder as separate from Bacon-house, which was rebuilt by the Lord Keeper. It may be that the Recorder’s house was built upon part of the original site of the Shelley-house. In Coach makers Hall were held the meetings of the Protestant Association, which, under the presidency of Lord Geo. Gordon, led to the riots of 1780. 1 [Also see Part III: Fortunes of Fire]. William Seres, the elder, was servant to Lord Burghley while he was only Sir William Cecil, and by the aid of his master procured a patent, dated March 4, 7 Edw. VI., 2 for printing Primers. By what succeeds, it appears (and it is a new point in his biography) that he was long imprisoned and deprived of his books by Queen Mary, and that, to compensate him, Elizabeth in 1558 gave him the privilege of sole printing not only Primers but Psalters. In 1571 he wished his son to be joined in the patent, and a new grant was made out accordingly. Many years afterwards (subsequent to the death of William Seres, the father, who is supposed to have died before 1579; 3 the validity of the grant of 1571 was questioned, on the ground that no surrender of the grant of 1558 was extant in Chancery. To clear up all doubt a new patent was conceded in 1591, and from the endorsement, in the handwriting of Lord Burghley, “forasmuch as some question is made touching the former Grant, I pray you to cause a new book to be made,” we may conclude that it was at his Lordship’s instance.

In Archceologia, 4 Sir Henry Ellis has inserted Barker’s account of the patent granted to William Seres. What succeeds is the draft of the new patent sent to Lord Ellesmere and corrected by him. Among other corrections, he struck out a clause empowering the Sheriffs of London, on behalf of William Seres and his assigns, “to break up and destroy all and every the presses of such impressions, wheresoever the same may be found, and to bind such person or persons with sufficient severity to their good behaviour, as shall presume to offend in anything contrary to the purport and intention of this our Letters Patents.” 5